


The Unlucky Baker

by wangchans



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bakery, Demons, Fluff, Friendship/Love, M/M, Meet-Cute, baker!seungmin, but with a twist, demon!Hyunjin, hell is a business district, there's a supernatural reference here somewhere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2020-01-04 06:39:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18338198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wangchans/pseuds/wangchans
Summary: Hyunjin is a demon whose job is to do at least one evil task a day. Today, Seungmin just so happens to be his victim.





	The Unlucky Baker

**Author's Note:**

> Saw the prompt on reddit and immediately thought Seungjin. I just /had/ to write it. I intend for this to be a oneshot, but who knows lmao. Enjoy!
> 
> [Link to the prompt](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/b4yx63/wp_demons_have_to_do_at_least_one_evil_thing/) :)

Hyunjin pats away the flames on his jacket’s shoulder. _Maybe next time, Hyunjin_ , he thinks to himself, _you don’t try teleporting to work._

 

Demons, you see, aren’t really the typical red-skinned, goat-hoofed, yellow-eyed monsters you see in the movies. One often associates them with savagery and torture and the souls of the damned. Truth is, it is business that fuels their literal fire. They are a corporation – with a CEO and managers and PowerPoint presentations. The black-haired boy happens to be an intern in said company, and he has to do one evil task per day to reach his quota. A sad job, but it’s a small price to pay unless he wanted to get on his manager’s bad side. _Mr. Park isn’t one you’d want to mess with._

He pads through the alleyways, looking for an 'evil' task to do. He sees an old lady lying on a piece of cardboard in one of the alleys, embracing what seems to be her daughter, who is asleep. A metal cup filled about halfway through with spare change sat beside her sleeping head. Hyunjin stops in front of them.

 

When it comes to evilness, you can find Hyunjin at the bottom of the list. His heart is soft – he loves cats, is afraid of the dark, and faints at the sight of a mere drop of blood. It wasn’t his fault he was born as a demon, but if he had to survive, he had to _be_  'evil,’ or at least try. But it’s still early in the day, and Hyunjin’s quota is infinitesimally small. He conjures up some coins and drops them into the metal cup. The still hot coins make a clanging sound as they drop from satan-knows-where, loud enough to wake neither lady nor child. He fills the cup to the brim, and the cup was red-hot by the time he was finished.

 

He puts his hood up, turns the other way, and walks in the direction of the city center.

 

\--

 

Seungmin switches on the lights to the bakery. The red-haired boy pushes his cart of pastries into the store, and slides the trays of breads and cookies into the appropriate display racks. _Sweets on the left, savories on the right,_ he reminds himself.

 

This establishment was his parents’, and they gladly hired him as a junior baker for the summer. It has barely been a week since he started, but his arms were _exhausted_ from making the pastries and carrying them to the store. It doesn’t faze him though – he’s _crazy good_ at baking, being the son of the (allegedly) best bakers in Seoul and all. Plus, he gets paid to make pastries – he’ll have enough money to buy that new Pokémon game in no time.

 

Seungmin finally finishes arranging his wares. He turns the sign on the door to “OPEN” and sits behind the register. It’s 10:09 am, the clock on the register says. _Late again. Mom and dad are gonna kill me._ He sits himself down on the cash register, waiting for a customer, any customer, to come in.

 

Nothing.

 

After what seems to be an eternity, the door finally opens. Seungmin feels the temperature immediately rise as a boy in a gray hoodie and blue jeans steps into the room. He notices that the boy’s jacket had a black mark on the shoulder, as if it had been singed. _If it were that hot outside, thank God I work indoors._

The boy walks around the store, eyeing each pastry in the display racks. He looks at the cashier, and makes eye contact with Seungmin. The red-haired boy freezes. Seungmin could’ve sworn the boy’s eyes shone a golden yellow. _Is he wearing contacts? Nobody has naturally yellow eyes…right?_

 

Seungmin continues to watch his first customer of the day stalk the aisles of the store. The boy leans in towards the bread loaves. He looks around, wary of witnesses, and sneaks a whiff. Seungmin chuckles. _The loaves are wrapped in plastic, silly. You can’t smell them._

The customer glares at him, as if he’d heard the redhead’s thoughts. The boy takes the largest loaves and shoves them into his basket. He starts towards the cashier, and Seungmin’s heart starts to race.

 

“There is one dozen of these loaves in my basket. I would like to buy them, please,” the boy says, placing his basket on the counter.

 

“Alright, sir. I’ll scan these up for you.” Seungmin scans the barcodes on the loaves. He felt weird calling the boy _sir_. Maybe if the guy were 5? 10? years older than him he’d be fine with it, but he and the boy seemed to be just around the same age. But a customer’s a customer, and he should be polite. Mom and dad _will_ find out if he isn’t.

 

Hyunjin eyes the fishbowl of cookies by the register. “Um,” he says, pressing his finger down on his lower lip, “could you get me one of those donuts over there?” He points to the donuts on the display rack behind Seungmin. “Any flavor is fine. I don’t mind.”

 

Seungmin finally gets a closer look at the mystery boy. His hair was black, like those coal bricks they use to grill _galbi_ on the weekends. His face was pale, but tinted with a warmness that looks as if there was a fire burning under his skin. His lips were full and pink, covering a set of small, straight, pristinely white teeth. His eyes _were_ a golden yellow, framed by long, thin lashes and decorated with a mole under his left eye. Seungmin never judges looks, but the boy looked like an _angel._

_(Oh, the irony.)_

 

Seungmin meets the boy’s eyes when he realizes he spaced out. “Hey,” the boy says. “You okay?”

 

“O-Of course. Donuts. Right. I’ll be with you in a minute.” The red-haired boy picks up the tongs on the counter and walks to the donut display. He picks up a chocolate donut topped with vanilla icing and crushed oreos. He wraps the donut in a little plastic pouch and lays it on the tray by the register. Seungmin punches in the code for the donut.

 

“So, the dozen promo for our loaves is 100,000 won, and the donut is 3,000 won. That’ll be a total of 103,000 won, please.” He packs the breads in two plastic bags and hands him his donut. “You sure you can carry all this?”

 

The customer pulls out 105,000 won from his back pocket and hands the bills to Seungmin. The bills were warm in the baker’s hands, like if the pants were freshly ironed with them still in it. “Yeah, I can handle it.”

 

“Hmm, alright.” Seungmin punches the payment into the register, deposits the money, and takes 2,000 won out. “Here’s your change. Thank you for coming!”

 

The other boy looks him in the eye, his eyes sparkling like molten gold. “Thanks,” he says with a smile that sent shivers down Seungmin’s spine. “I’ll be back soon.”

 

\--

 

Hyunjin walks out the door of the store with his bag of bread in one hand, his donut on the other, and a smug look on his face. He takes a bite of the chocolate monstrosity. _What a good donut_ , he thinks to himself. It tasted fresh, homemade. _Did that boy make this?_

He stuffs the rest of his donut in his mouth and throws the plastic pouch into the nearest bin. He wipes his hand on his jeans and moves it to his jacket pocket, where he had stored the cookie he stole from the fishbowl by the counter.

 

_Mission accomplished._

 

\--

 

Seungmin is ten minutes early the next day. All of the pastries he had baked the night before and this morning are front and center in the display racks by 9:45. He woke up so early that he had started baking his breads at 7:06 – plenty of time to get ready and restock the bakery.

 

He notices customers lining up outside the store. It’s the first time he’s seen this many people queuing up before opening. He turns the sign to “OPEN” and lets the customers in. At least fifteen people cram inside the little store to buy Seungmin’s freshly-bkaed breads.

_And none of them were the boy from yesterday._

 

Seungmin couldn’t stop thinking about the boy with the yellow eyes. He was intrigued by the way he looked at him with those pools of molten gold – the boy’s gaze could quite literally set Seungmin on fire. He said Seungmin would see him again soon. _But soon could mean anytime between today and the next 500 years. He was probably just a one-time customer. We’ve had plenty of those. What makes him any special?_

 

Hours flew by in the bakery, as customers went in and out in droves. Seungmin was busy the whole day, serving up pastries to customers when there were people in the store and restocking the shelves and display racks when there were none. His eyes were still scanning each customer’s face, looking for a set of golden eyes belonging to a certain boy.

 

Next thing he knew, it was dark. The clock on the register read 7:57pm. Three minutes until closing time, with one customer left to go - a lady in a green dress, buying a couple of sweet milk breads and a dozen of donuts. She tipped Seungmin with a 10,000 won bill.

 

“Are you sure this is your tip, Miss?” he asks the lady. _The whole thing?_

 

“Oh yes, dear. It makes my heart so full to see kids like you take on jobs for the summer, learning about the world.” The lady puts her hand to her chest. “If I were you I’d be spending my whole day out playing with my friends, but I’m guessing you enjoy being here much more.”

 

“Yes, I do, Miss. And it was really hot outside this morning, so if I wanted to go out I couldn’t anyway.”

 

“You have a point,” the lady says with a soft laugh. “Okay, so I think we’re done here? Thank you so much for the bread,” she leans in to take a closer look at Seungmin’s nametag. “Seungmin. Thank you, Seungmin.”

 

“No problem, Miss. Thank you for coming.” And out the door she goes.

 

Seungmin follows suit to close up shop. He turns the sign on the door to “CLOSED.” After that 10,000 won tip, plus all the others he earned today, he’s much, much closer to buying that game. He makes his way to the cashier to count the hard-earned cash, first going through the tip jar and putting the money into the coin purse in his bag. He turns back to face the store and…sees _the_ _boy from yesterday_ right in the middle of the store. One of his shoes was-

 

“Ow, ow, ow,” the boy whines, patting down what seems to be a tongue of flames from his shoe. He stands back up, wipes his hands on his jeans, and pulls out a pen from his front pocket. He proceeds to write on the back of his hand, while saying out loud, “Never wear suede when teleporting. Also, don’t do it indoors. Not. Safe.”

 

“Who- _what_ are you?” Seungmin asks the black-haired boy.

 

“Right, I never introduced myself. Hyunjin.” Hyunjin holds out his hand.

 

“I’m not touching that.”

 

“You won’t catch fire, I swear. It only happens when I teleport. Sometimes. I haven’t had much practice with it.”

 

“You’re not human, are you?” At this point Seungmin was more curious than scared. It’s not everyday you get a supernatural being in your store.

 

“Are you gonna kick me out if I say that I’m not?”

 

“I…don’t think so? I mean-” Seungmin wasn’t able to finish his sentence.

 

“Good enough. I am…” Hyunjin pauses and takes a deep breath, before introducing himself formally to the redhead. “Hwang Hyunjin, intern demon from the Park Corporation. It’s nice to meet you, sir.” The black-haired boy bows.

 

“Oh.” Seungmin’s eyes widen. He’d never met a demon before. Hell, he didn’t even believe they existed until one teleported right in front of him moments ago, complete with burning shoe. “Kim Seungmin. Junior baker, full-time student. It’s nice to meet you too.”

 

Seungmin was the one who held his hand out this time. Hyunjin takes the offer and shakes it. As expected from the demon boy, his hands were warm, but the skin on his palms was soft and smooth. “So. A demon, huh.”

 

“Yeah. Too freaky?”

 

“Oddly, I’m not surprised. But I guess that explains why you stole that cookie yesterday.” The redhead chuckles. Feels weird calling out a demon on his own thing, but it’s a good kind of weird.

 

“What?! You saw?”

 

“For an infernal being, you’re not very good at the evil thing.”

 

“Hey! I take offense to this statement…” Hyunjin laughs back at the boy. “…but yeah. I’m not really…fit for the business, so to speak.” The mood changes instantly. Hyunjin picks at the soot on the floor with his not-burned shoe.

 

“Business?” Seungmin tilts his head in confusion. He’d always thought of hell as a huge toaster oven, with red flames and torture caverns and the circles he’d read about when he read Dante’s Inferno this fall. He never expected business suits and tiled floors and glass windows. But then again, maybe those _can_ coexist. He couldn’t really tell from what the other boy was saying.

 

“Literally yes. Down there,” Hyunjin points to the ground. “It’s a big, big conglomerate of businesses running the whole thing. I do grunt work for my boss, Mr. Park, by doing one evil task per day. We interns have to meet our daily quota so he doesn’t smite us. That’s why I stole your cookie. I’m sorry.”

 

“Hey. You’re a demon. You don’t have to apologize.” Seungmin pushes himself up and sits on the counter. He pats the side of the counter next to him, signaling Hyunjin to sit beside him. The black-haired boy obliges.

 

“I try to do different evil things a day, but never really the ones that hurt people?” Hyunjin tries to explain himself. “I’d rather do nice stuff, honestly. Those loaves I bought from you yesterday? I gave them all away at the homeless shelter down the street. They’ve been having trouble with getting enough food and supplies, and I thought I’d help out. But I stole that cookie, so my quota was reached anyway. The corporation doesn’t really care what I do outside of that.”

 

“Wow. You’re a _terrible_ demon, Hyunjin.”

 

“There’s already too much evil out here. I don’t think a demon like me would need to cause any more harm if people do so much already on a daily basis.”

 

Seungmin used to believe that demons were evil, carnal creatures that cause panic and chaos for their own amusement. He knows this is what most people think, too. But Hyunjin would rather do good than evil, and not because he’s being forced to by some whatever force. He’s doing good on his own, because that is who he is. What he _is_ doesn’t define what he _does_ in the world. And Seungmin understands that.

 

“Tell you what. As long as you come to the bakery, you are free to steal as many cookies as you want. You’re free to buy as many things as you want too, provided you give them away to the homeless shelter whenever possible.” He’ll be helping Hyunjin with his quota, and the demon boy won’t have to do other evil things to reach it. It also wouldn’t hurt that he would see Hyunjin everyday too. _But he doesn’t need to know that._

“But don’t tell me when, because that might ruin it. If I give you permission to steal, I’ll just be giving them to you for free. So just steal whenever you want. Just don’t tell me. Do we have a deal?”

 

“Deal.” The two boys shake hands for the second time today. This time, their hands clutch much tighter, with Seungmin no longer scared to catch fire, and Hyunjin grateful for the other boy’s cooperation.

 

Their hands touch a little too long. Seungmin pulls away first.

 

“Oh. Uh, it’s getting late, and I have to clean up, so.” He steps off the counter and turns around, trying to hide the obvious red tint on his cheeks.

 

“Of course. I’ll see you tomorrow then. I won’t steal anything, I promise,” Hyunjin says with a wink. The boy walks

 

“Sure thing.” Seungmin waves at him from the cash register. “See you tomorrow.”

 

Hyunjin teleports back to wherever he came from, leaving floating embers in the middle of the store. _He could’ve used the door,_ Seungmin tells himself, before picking up a broom and cleaning up today's mess.

 

 _Inventory is gonna be a hassle_.


End file.
